EP Review: The Vestals – Life Without Love
Live Without Love
Released October 23rd 2014
Words: Jimmy Gallagher
After decades of evolutionary movements within music and between genres you have to reserve some sympathy for recent artists. Where do they go? How do they avoid sounding “The same?” The answer is they can’t, not entirely. They can only create what they want to create and as long as it’s done well then it should be appreciated on its own merits.
The Vestals, by their own admission, have a clear vision of making huge pop songs with an 80s inspired feel. They take their influences from The Cure, M83, The Smiths and more contemporary outfits such as The Pains of being Pure at Heart and Bright Eyes. And they do it well as their latest EP – Life Without Love, demonstrates.
The EP gently glides from the atmospheric intro of Waking Up into the title track, Life Without Love. Like The Smiths, their approach to the instruments they use is that their purpose is to add something to the song and not distract from it. The blossoming melancholy of The Vestals sound is enhanced by the seemingly distant touches of synth added to each part forming a dream like aura.
Life Without Love has a joyous vulnerability both musically and lyrically. The band’s singer Adam Parslow, compares his isolation to a flower without the sun as his poetic internal monologue longs for someone to share his delicate pain. In I Mean The World To Know One, the almost self deprecating lyrics contrast with Parslow’s self-assurity in what he sings. This is mirrored in the whole song construction through to its intelligent synthetic production. The music is uplifting and tantalises just enough emotion to really buy into what this band are about.
The Vestals brand of pop is undeniably accessible and has been done before but they know that and they are comfortable with it. The final track on the EP- Dear Happiness is an example of their identity asserting a truth in themselves and their songs. It is unhurried and maturely crafted linking soft flourishes and its underlying darker shades.
With such a fine selection of songs and a delightfully pure outlook, The Vestals are sat enticingly on the verge of crossing the line and catapulting themselves into people’s wider consciousness.
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